On November 30, officials in Jefferson County, Washington, agreed not to enforce a county ordinance that limits signs on private property to those that are 8 square feet or smaller. Three years ago, a county resident sued the county because he wanted to put a sign on his truck in favor of a candidate for County Commissioner, but the county had said his sign was too large and was therefore illegal. See this story.
In the United States, it seems there is almost an infinity of reasons why petitions can be challenged. States that require petition sheets to be notarized open the doors for additional types of challenges. Determined challengers may realize that the petition itself has enough signatures of registered voters, so then the challengers try to find something wrong with the paperwork involving notarization.
A group in Maine recently submitted 56,107 valid signatures, to force a referendum on a tax overhaul that the legislature passed earlier this year. Opponents of the referendum petition say that it should not be on the ballot, because at least two of the notaries public who notarized certain sheets got married, and didn’t ever notify the state office that keeps tabs on notaries that their surnames had changed. Because the Secretary of State certified the petition anyway, one challenger sued the Secretary of State to remove the referendum. The lawsuit is Johnson v Dunlap, Kennebec Superior Court, AP 09-56. The case will probably be decided by January 1, 2010.
Boerne, Texas, has been using Cumulative Voting for its city council elections since 1997. The city began using Cumulative Voting in response to a lawsuit that had been filed by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). Cumulative Voting is a system in which each voters gets, for example, three votes. That voter is free to give all three votes to one particular candidate, or spread the votes around to several candidates. The goal was to make it possible for Hispanics to win at least one seat. However, even with Cumulative Voting, no Hispanic has been on the Council since 2003.
LULAC says it would support going to single-member districts if a majority-Hispanic district could be drawn. See this story. Boerne is in central Texas and is 20% Hispanic.
December is the prime month during which activists should look for state legislators to introduce bills in next year’s legislative sessions. More progress improving ballot access laws comes from persuading state legislators to ease these laws, than via lawsuits. But many states have very early deadlines for legislators to introduce bills. For example, in Indiana, all bills considered in 2010 must have been introduced by the first week in January 2010.
Although the Vermont legislature is not in session, Vermont state government officials are talking about whether to move the primary (for all office except president) from September, to August 24. See this story. Governor Jim Douglas favors asking the federal government for a waiver of the new federal law that is pushing the talk about a primary date change. The new federal law, which takes effect for the 2010 congressional primaries, tells states they must mail overseas absentee ballots no later than 45 days before the November election.
